Putting Jordan in the middle of the floor as point guard instead of to the side as a shooting guard made it more difficult to double-team him effectively. But Jordan was assured by Collins the move was only temporary, and after the season he told the team he preferred to return to his shooting guard role. Why? The official reasons were that he would get too tired playing point guard and that he’d have trouble defending against the smaller, quicker point guards and that, too, would wear him out. Cheap Jordan Shoes, But the fact was that Jordan continued to have grave doubts about his teammates’ ability to score, saying, “How am I supposed to be the principal ball deliverer and the main scorer?” Phil Jackson would later reject his assistants’ suggestion to move Jordan to point guard, arguing that Jordan’s passing was not consistently good enough and that giving Jordan the ball even more would reduce the chances of dividing up the scoring load, one of Jackson’s main goals.

Hodges, meanwhile, suffered an ankle injury in that game against Golden State in March 1988 after averaging 18 points, almost double his career average, and shooting 22 for 31 from three-point range in his previous six games. He would miss the rest of the regular season, be hampered in the playoffs, and never truly regain his health the next season. With Hodges still hobbling at the start of training camp in 1989, John Paxson moved in as starting point guard, and Hodges went on to have the poorest season of his career.

The team never truly believed there was anything wrong with Hodges. Their reports merely noted some soft-tissue buildup and said that Hodges would be able to play through it The Bulls were also angry because Hodges had been a free agent after the 1988-89 season and, fearing they might lose him to Portland (which was prepared to make an offer), they gave him a four-year, $2.6 million contract,Air Jordan Shoes, and now he couldn’t play effectively. Hodges kept saying something was wrong, but he wasn’t getting much response from the team.

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